So if there's one thing I'm not good at (anymore), it's school. I think this is mostly because of my increasingly procrastinating nature and an overall lack of motivation, which, I'm sure, is why anyone gets low grades.

Persona 3 and Persona 4 lead me to think that having students' grades be publically viewable to everyone else in a school might be a relatively common practice in Japan, and this is something I've always thought would have more benefits than negatives compared to what I think is most of peoples' school experiences of school grades being private, except for perhaps the exceptional ones.

I'm a competitive person, and the motivation of wanting to be the best as well as the pressure of not wanting to be humiliated compared to my peers would only increase my academic performance, if this hypothetical were to become a reality. I'd like to think this would be the case for many others as well.

So, would you want the grades of every student in your school (encompassing all institutes of education) to be publically and openly shown to everyone who wanted to see or is this an insane proposition?

I think that those kind of things should be kept private. Someones academic performance is no ones business but their own(and their parents I guess).

Also, what if someone is trying as hard as they can, but just can't pass, lets say, math class for instance. They could have some sort of learning disability, their home life could be part of the issue, maybe the school the are at has terrible teachers, etc. etc. Is the best option really to try and humiliate them in front of their peers?

Also, what if someone is trying as hard as they can, but just can't pass, lets say, math class for instance. They could have some sort of learning disability, their home life could be part of the issue, maybe the school the are at has terrible teachers, etc. etc. Is the best option really to try and humiliate them in front of their peers?

That would be problematic, yes. Honestly, my response to this question is backed by selfish desires more than anything else, because I know that if I had something pushing me to do my best in school, I wouldn't be failing nearly as hard as I am now.

I do feel, though, that I can't be the only one like this and that there are many other people who would study more in school instead of wasting their time away if they had the fear of humiliation or the pleasure of competition going alongside their studies.

I honestly did not consider that the common response to this situation would be indifference.

I wouldn't care. I had an English Teacher in High School who sort of did that. He assigned everyone a mythical creature and every week would post a sheet with the grades on it behind his desk. The animals were still organized in alphabetical order by the person's last name though, so if you really wanted to know someone's grade you could. I still did worse in that class than any other class ever.

Also, what if someone is trying as hard as they can, but just can't pass, lets say, math class for instance. They could have some sort of learning disability, their home life could be part of the issue, maybe the school the are at has terrible teachers, etc. etc. Is the best option really to try and humiliate them in front of their peers?

That would be problematic, yes. Honestly, my response to this question is backed by selfish desires more than anything else, because I know that if I had something pushing me to do my best in school, I wouldn't be failing nearly as hard as I am now.

I do feel, though, that I can't be the only one like this and that there are many other people who would study more in school instead of wasting their time away if they had the fear of humiliation or the pleasure of competition going alongside their studies.

I honestly did not consider that the common response to this situation would be indifference.

Tell me what classes you are failing and I would be more then happy to make fun of you. :)

Tell me what classes you are failing and I would be more then happy to make fun of you. :)

I, uh, what? Well, I'm in my 3rd semester of Cegep following a science program (Quebec school system; essentially grade 13) and my time here's going to be extended by 2 semester because I failed 4 classes.

Semester 1: failed mechanics; intro. to programming. Main reasons: thinking Cegep was going to be a breeze like secondary school was and also being hella lazy.

Semester 2.5 (summer school): failed calculus II; mechanics. Main reasons: apparently I was insane to think I could handle two intense science summer classes and, as it turned out, I was. Also, I was hella lazy.

So yeah, I just think if I had more motivation to do these things, like what this poll suggests, I'd be doing better.

I wouldn't have cared. but then I stopped caring about grades long ago after I had straight A's in all the real classes but my parents yelled at me for getting a C in Penmanship, which wasn't an actual class the teacher would just go off of how readable your tests and shit were. To be fair, though, my penmanship is pretty damn terrible. But I wasn't about to write slower just for that dumb fucking reason.

Tell me what classes you are failing and I would be more then happy to make fun of you. :)

I, uh, what? Well, I'm in my 3rd semester of Cegep following a science program (Quebec school system; essentially grade 13) and my time here's going to be extended by 2 semester because I failed 4 classes.

Semester 1: failed mechanics; intro. to programming. Main reasons: thinking Cegep was going to be a breeze like secondary school was and also being hella lazy.

Semester 2.5 (summer school): failed calculus II; mechanics. Main reasons: apparently I was insane to think I could handle two intense science summer classes and, as it turned out, I was. Also, I was hella lazy.

So yeah, I just think if I had more motivation to do these things, like what this poll suggests, I'd be doing better.

Those classes are so easy! You must be pretty damn dumb to fail all those classes! I guess it is no surprise you are failing though seeing as how you spend so much time on giantbomb.com! A sack of potatoes could do better then you!!!!

There, I hope that helps motivate you :)

In all seriousness though I can not imagine taking so many math classes. I am more of a social sciences guy, where there are no right or wrong answers, just informed and detailed ones. Good luck with your future classes dude!

I chose C. because it all depends on the situation (much like nearly everything else). I cannot say that I wouldn't agree with having their grades published, but in a more private manner like only in school and a relative audience (students, parents of students, faculty, etc). Not any bum on the street or even a news-paper. That would just be ridiculous.

No, I wouldn't, but that was 'cause my high school didn't keep a class rank. There were like 1200-1300 students per year and too many different tracks for students; there was no way to keep that shit reasonable.

But if class rank is already something you can send to college at a school, then WHY NOT. I do agree that it would lead to more competition, and that's not necessarily a bad thing. I do think class rank sucks, though, so I'd rather have neither one.

No, I would not want them to be public as that would be an invasion of privacy. How good or bad my own grades are is irrelevant.

Plus I find that discussing grades with friends usually fosters a negative atmosphere. Making them public certainly isn't going to help that. I hear that at the Ivy league schools, professors actually discourage students from discussing grades at all since they think doing so would detract from the learning experience.

Had decent grades, nothing I was private about or ashamed of. I would not want this, it's simply a privacy factor. Personal details like that don't need to be seen by everyone. Especially when the details are about kids.

Not to mention how people will be talked down to or bullied even more when they get made fun of for being "dumb." Not that we don't all know who passed and failed in our class, but this seems like another chance for someone with better grades to say something rude about someone with lower grades.

One of my high school math classes did that, and it just so happens math was my worst subject. I can't remember it too well (it was math class after all), but I think they were up because we had to do some kind of project using the numbers.

I only said yes because my high school had an oversaturation of kids taking AP courses in literally everything so the top 20 all ended up having almost the exact same GPA, and the bottom 50 or so were all just either not into school, dope heads, or wanted to do something else with their lives than continue schooling. Since I was only like .00001 from being in the top 10, I'm perfectly fine with my grades being posted for people to see.

I openly slept through and ditched my English and Gov't classes, though, so I might be annoyed to see those posted. Or not. I dunno.

They only share major test scores in Japan and only where you place in regard to the other students. They don't show the actual number grade.

Ah, that could be a nice middle ground. Rankings, but without the actual grades associated with them. Could still entice people like me to be competitive about it without actually humiliating people that much.

I would always compare myself towards others. I mean, it is nature to one up your ego against your fellow classmates.

Being pretty much a A/B+ student, I would pride myself on the fact I was better than most students. A little competition would not hurt among students.

Trust me, there is much more competition in medical school; so why not weed out those with no motivation. Just sayin... :p

Same, but I still would not want my grades to go public, granted, I still discuss test scores with my classmates, but I dont want them to be public, especially when I'm hitting a down point in the year (beginning and end of school years) I would not want by grades to be posted, purely for the fact that some people will be judged based on the grades that they have.

There could also be a cutoff, where the top 10-15% of the student get their grades posted, and everybody else has them private.

@ManU_Fan10ne: Hey man, we all have different points of view and mines is most certainly not right. I would feel that pressure could in fact improve performance (or make it worse). It is not a simple black and white issue that will be solved over night and I am certain no one will take this into consideration. (Until our Chinese Overlords eventually come to conquer us.) But until that day, solutions have to be found in order to improve student's education. I mean, we are greatly lagging behind every post industrial country. So there is a huge problem with our education system and it is showing every day. ._.

I wouldn't have minded if everyone saw my grades, I was a slacker and I couldn't care less back then, when I flunked I told everybody and just laughed it off. I never saw grades as something you could measure someone's intelligence, so I never cared if they thought I was dumb or not. I hated high school, I just wanted to get out of that horrible place.

@WasabiCurry: Ya, everything except plain old math has shades of gray (for some reason, physics breaks like every damn rule). I agree, sometimes pressure (even peer pressure 0_0) is good. And you're right, our education system is horrible compared to some other countries, we really do need education reform.....especially for the elementary age kids.

That's actually illegal in public schools in the US, the publication of student grades with their names attached. And personally, no, I would not like that. Students already compete with each other grade wise as is without that kind of publicity. For example, I'm certain everyone here knew pretty well which kid was the smart one in their class.